May 19, 2011

RIOT GIRLS: Dragging Main!

Posted by Ethne~

Do you even know how lucky we were in high school?  We had two, count ‘em TWO, main streets to drag!

There was MAIN STREET.  And then there was MILLION DOLLAR WAY.  Sweet, huh?  You can pretty much figure out how Main got its name, but what’s the deal with Million Dollar Way?  Well, back in the oil boom days (there’s a seriously huge amount of oil in the earth where we grew up), that road led out of town to the oil wells.  Millions of bucks to be drilled.

[Incidentally, Williston is once again in an oil boom.  ND is the only state in the union in the black – jobs abound.  The population of our hometown has doubled since we graduated.  Life is good there.  Maybe it should be changed to BILLION DOLLAR WAY?]

I believe this photo is from state fair weekend. 
That's Lor and I in the middle (Kelly on the left and Sara on the right)
Anywho, we and our friends were master Main-draggers.  We had our fave turn-around spots.  Amoco gas station – you could get snacks at the top of every lap – was ours.  We usually took turns driving – but Lori’s and my trucks weren’t at the top of the list – they were antiques and not very roomy.  I’m certain my Datsun pick-up was from the 1970’s, and Lori’s Toyota pick-up was possibly even older.  But oh, how we loved our trucks.  Manual transmission too – we do it right in ND.

Currently, this is Lori and Steve's Dodge (courtesy of Steve's grandpa).
How cool!  Lori's little red truck was courtesy of her grandpa!  The tradition continues!
Is this lame?  NO WAY!

First, most kids who could drive did it at some point.  We could get our driver’s licenses at age 14 in ND, so there was a lot of time to work with.

Second, we were dragging Main checking for guys from small towns nearby – Ray, Grenora, Stanley, Alexander, Watford City – we were on the prowl.  Never too much success, but we didn’t give up.  Yeah, this may sound dumb, but if you think about it, we weren’t doing drugs, drinking alcohol or being promiscuous.  Our parents could hardly crack down.  And gas was less than $1 per gallon back in those olden days, too.  What?!?

Graduation:  Pretty sure everyone pictured dragged main!
To set the driving atmosphere, we played our fave gangsta rap music over our factory-installed car speakers – Snoop and Dre on a Ford Tempo sound system is phenomenal.  It doesn’t get much cooler than this, Friends!

Speaking of gangsta rap, we thought it would be fun to expand our routes a bit – and we pretty much made up our own ghettos of Williston.  These were places where there wasn’t great lighting, it was woodsy, or where strange people lived – like the Californians’ compound.  No one really knew who the Californians were or why they were strange, but we christened their compound a ghetto and when we were feeling brave, we’d drive around their driveway with our lights off late at night.  I’m laughing as I type this.  It sounds a bit ‘wop-wop’ now.

WINTER FORMAL!
All this may not have been much, but it’s what we had.  I can only hope our kids’ teenage years will be so wholesome.  Even if it’s cause for some serious eye-rolling by Shaun and Steve now, all of us ended up being college grads with good jobs.  We must’ve been doing something right!

What did you do as teenagers to make the time pass?  Did you have a blast?  Did you riot?  We’d love to hear.

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